Fair Friends

AG Eliot Spitzer made his requisite visit to the New York State Fair with hisÂ wife, Silda Wall, and LGÂ candidate David Paterson in tow…and look who he just happened to bump into!-U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, who was onceÂ considering a run for governor himself this fall.

That included the “Moo-tique” whereÂ Spitzer purchased a “Got Milk?” baseball hat,Â the butter sculpture (oddly, it’s a sports theme of three people dressed in work-out gear), and the milk tasting booth, whereÂ Wall joined them for a chugging contest (I cannot make these thingsÂ up), of which Spitzer declared himself the winner. Â

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Schumer and the Spitzer entourage parted ways after this. Spitzer & Co. headed on to the BBQ that he and Paterson were sponsoring for a few hundred supporters under the grandstand (where, at the end, you could hear James Taylor warming up for this evening’s concert).

At the event, Spitzer continued with discussing his optimistic outlook for New York, which is a topic he’s been discussing a lot during the campaign and one that became the focus of last night’s town hall meeting.

“Over the course of the campaign, there’s been a lot of negative talk, a lot of people running down the state,” Spitzer said. “It’s true how some of the facts don’t look so good for the state. Our kids are leaving. Taxes are up. Jobs are down. The environment is suffering. The status quo is broken. Abany is busted.

All those things make us wake up in the morning and ask: Why are we here?

I got an answer for you. We’re here because this is New York.Â New York is the best, most important, greatest state in the nation, and we know it. We’re going to bring it back once again. One thing we’re never short of in New York is the optimism that we wiill be number one again.”Â

True to form, Spitzer did not go into details of how he plans to bring the state back from the brink. He said the venue was not an appropriate place to do so, delivering what I think might be the best lines of this campaign to date:

“It’s not the right moment to give a long speech about substance and property tax reduction and education and healthcare and environmental issues and the labor issues we care about, and we do care about them. Enormously.

And it gets harder every moment because I smell hamburgers. Do you smell hamburgers?

When I smell hamburgers, I can’t focus on substance.”

Later, when talking with reporters, Spitzer said his current focus is property tax relief, adding: “down the road, we have to lower all of the tax burdens.” When it comes toÂ cutting the income tax – something GOP gubernatorial candidate John Faso has called for – Newsday’s Errol Cockfield noted that’s been a non-starter in the Democratic-controlled state Assembly.

“We’re going to be breaking a lot of molds come this January if I’m lucky enough to win,” Spitzer responded.Â

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Also at the BBQ,Â Sen. Dave Valesky, D-Syracuse,Â brought on stage Maisie Ruddy, the 3-year-old daughter of Court Ruddy, Valesky’s chief of staff, who has become something of a minor celebrity due to her role in a Spitzer TV commerical.

Maisie re-enacted her sign-waving parting shot in the commercial for the cheering crowd. It was hard to determine who they loved more, Maisie or Spitzer, who spent considerable time working the rope line and signing campaign signs with Paterson and Wall.